Bölge ve Bölgesel Entegrasyon Bağlamında Orta Asya Devletleri’nin Birliği için Bir Model Önerisi

Abstract

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan have attempted to participate in regional cooperations to serve a variety of purposes of securing their common interest and preserving their new sovereignty in the late 20th century. Establishing regional integration for these states seems popular to continue in the twenty-first century as the leaders of these republics are coordinating policies more frequently and thriving to search ways to consolidate a more developed, law-based and structured regional union. However, although they had already had the understanding and expectation to establish a regional union, they could not establish one which may hitherto bring about practical results and concrete outcomes. Thus, the aim of this article is first to analyze the integration process of Central Asian countries with a regional perspective, and then to purpose a model of Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to these countries as it may offer useful guidance for them. Central Asia states have geographic, linguistic, historical, cultural and economic affinities for regional integration. The study claims that though limited similarities, the ASEAN experience can be as an example for the Central Asia region due to the components of especially geographical affinity and cultural convergence. Not only the aforementioned components but also having similar issues of economic depression, boundary and water problems, armed conflicts and unresolved interethnic matters with Southeast Asian countries may be examples for strengthening the study’s claim. In this article, there are three themes to be elucidated: first, the meaning of region concept, second, the reasons why these republics have not yet established a sustainable regional union, and finally why the ASEAN integration model is appropriate.